Thank you for all of your support of BSC Days 07/14/14-07/17/14


The BSC (stands for Bat-Shit Crazy) Days were an event with a set of video and text presentations, updates, and reveals held by City State Entertainment on 7/14/-7/17/2014. For Camelot Unchained, BSC is often used by City State Entertainment to refer to the slightly off-the-wall, maybe a little "crazy" ideas of Mark Jacobs and the City State Entertainment team about our own game mechanics. The BSC Days event was a major early content and gameplay reveal for Camelot Unchained.

UI Modding Presentation

Problem – How to build a proper U.I.

  • U.I.s in MMORPGs have been a source of great inspiration and frustration for players and developers
    • What makes a U.I. great can be very personal and subjective
      • While some factors such as speed, responsiveness, and overall utility are shared needs, what some people expect in a modern U.I. is not necessarily shared with the majority
  • U.I.s tend to consume a large amount of developer bandwidth on the design and engineering side

Solution

  • As discussed during our Kickstarter, we are building our U.I. out of the web
    • This is only the first step of the process. The web provides some of the required tools, but we still need a lot of custom code
    • The User Interface is built out of the web, letting players create custom UI mods with HTML5 and JavaScript
  • Allow the players to take our U.I. to the next level by open-sourcing the entire U.I. code, and not just the mods to it
    • Make it available on GitHub, under the Mozilla Public License
      • This allows the entire Camelot Unchained community access to the code
      • GitHub serves as the repository for the code, and allows the community to comment and improve on it
        • If we approve of the changes, we can incorporate the changed code into our codebase
      • Code is already available on GitHub at https://github.com/csegames/cu-ui
  • For discussion with your fellow intrepid modders and hackers, hang out in our backer forums at: https://forums.camelotunchained.com/forum/63-ui-modding-hacking/

Making Mods

  • The User Interface is built using an implementation of Chromium to provide web features
  • The UI uses jQuery, a JavaScript library that makes working with the DOM, AJAX, events, and effects much simpler
    • Powers the majority of websites
    • A “known quantity” for the vast majority of web developers
  • The underscore.js JavaScript library is included for convenience and ease of code cleanup
    • Lots of “helper” functional programming style functions, with only about 1000 lines of code
    • Embraces JavaScript’s functional programming paradigm
  • The UI is written in TypeScript, providing compiler features which can help catch errors early
    • Basically, this is JavaScript meets C#
    • User-friendly; fewer mistakes for inexperienced engineers
    • Supports pure JavaScript as well; no need to learn a new language

Odds and Ends

  • Social functions for groups, guilds, etc., can also be created out of the web
  • In-game chat can be accessed via external XMPP clients, such as Trillian, with website integration accessible to all our backers (coming soon)
    • This is the exact same code that we use for in-game chat. A perfect example of how we are building the U.I. out of the web
    • This system has been in testing for months, and has been pretty solid so far
    • Players will be able to communicate easily, whether they are in the game or through a web client or mobile app
      • No need to log into game to check on your friends, guild, etc. You can do so through an XMPP client
      • No inter-realm chatter will be supported by this system: You will not be able to talk to people who are not on your server and realm

Summary

  • CSE took the first step in making the MMORPG’s U.I. open-source by a decision to build the U.I. out of Chromium
  • Now we are taking it to the next level by placing our U.I. code on GitHub and inviting people to work with it
  • U.I. codebase also includes jQuery and underscore.js, and is written in TypeScript
  • For discussion with your fellow intrepid modders and hackers, hang out in our backer forums at: https://forums.camelotunchained.com/forum/63-ui-modding-hacking/
  • Camelot Unchained’s chat system utilizes XMPP, and has been in testing for months with our Internal Testers
    • We will soon open chat system to all Backers
    • Chat can be accessed through compatible XMPP apps and programs: Backers who are out-of-the-game can talk to players who are in game and visa-versa
      • No cross-realm chat will be allowed at launch